


30

by wirewrappedlily



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, i told you it was old, oldie, originally posted on dA, what should have happened after Dick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-05 16:29:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5382185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wirewrappedlily/pseuds/wirewrappedlily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The torture of John Winchester hadn't been to break him; hadn't been to turn him into a demon or something less than he was. Torturing John had been the preparation for Dean's arrival. The torture of John Winchester was what had finally broken the Righteous Man: He'd died for his family, sent himself to Hell--the only thing that could break him was the knowledge that his family had hurt, because of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	30

**Author's Note:**

> As mentioned in the tags, this is ancient. But I liked it, so here it is.

John Winchester had lasted almost a century. 

Dean had broken in thirty years. Thirty years of torture and pain that had made him into something different from what he was, had changed him. 

It was entirely possible that the thought that John would be disappointed in him hurt worse than his father sacrificing himself to that for Dean did. 

Alistair had lied when he'd said that the first seal was meant to be broken by John, though. It had always been Dean. John was just the instrument that he'd had to make in order to get Dean to break. 

The torture of John Winchester hadn't been to break him; hadn't been to turn him into a demon or something less than he was. Torturing John had been the preparation for Dean's arrival. The torture of John Winchester was what had finally broken the Righteous Man: He'd died for his family, sent himself to Hell--the only thing that could break him was the knowledge that his family had hurt, because of him. 

When John made that deal, Dean had been physically sick for days. He'd wondered if Tessa still had her claws in him, if there was some way that he was sent to Hell with John, because knowing that his family had been torn away just a little bit more had eaten, torn, and ripped at him until he felt like scraps. 

In the Pit, it hadn't been Dean's pain that had broken him, that had made him turn into something he wasn't. It was John's. John, who couldn't protect his family; John, who was a drunk and a deadbeat; John, who wasn't a dad, was barely a father but for biology--John, who was Dean's drill sergeant. 

In a way, yes, it was still Dean's pain. It was Dean's fault he couldn't witness the look of agony, the screams of pain, that came from John's broken and beaten down body. It was Dean's fault that he couldn't stand the thought that he was the reason his father had been under Alistair's knife. If he'd just...if he'd just fought a little harder--known a little sooner that it was Yellow Eyes riding John's bones. If he'd just been more than he was--

It had never computed for Castiel, why the Righteous Man had always felt so inferior to a man that had clearly lost being a man somewhere along the line. 

Even before Cas had started to feel; before he had started to know what it was to be human, Castiel didn't understand. Of John and Dean, Dean was the better man. 

John had been a good man...at times. But he'd been a bad man, too. Dean's upbringing being the case and point. 

Dean had taken care of Sammy since before he should have been able to take care of himself. He'd provided, he'd fought and bled and tried to protect Sam from the way they'd lived, and then from the way they'd come close to dying so many times. Dean had been hated by the one person he loved above everything and everyone, being a parent when he wasn't one and being a bit of a dick only because he didn't know how to get the job done and not be. There was seriously no bigger pain to him than knowing that Sam's Heaven: Sam's best memories were the ones that he hadn't been there for. 

Had Dean known when Bobby died...Had he known that Bobby had loved him like a son, had been proud of him beyond anything the crotchety old bastard had let on, Dean wouldn't have been able to keep going, even with Sammy there. Had he known that Cas was still watching over him, more human than Dean had ever gotten to see him, then Dean may not have felt quite so alone (even with Sammy there). 

It wasn't Sam's fault that Dean was slipping on what little support he could offer, and it wasn't Sam's fault that Dean couldn't do it anymore. 

Dean had lost every shred of family--blood or no--that he had ever had. And almost every one of them had died in front of him. 

He'd caught the barest glimpse of Mary on the ceiling; he'd seen Sam stabbed; he'd heard John's last words; he'd lost his second brother before he'd even known him; he'd gone back in time to see Deanna and Samuel Campbell slaughtered by the bastard that would kill his parents; he'd kissed Jo goodbye, and watched the explosion shatter the only thing close to a mother he'd had since Mary had died; he'd seen the heart monitor flatline on Bobby; and he'd been the one to raise Cas's trench coat from the lake. 

He'd lost everyone and everything that had ever been even remotely good in his life. He'd had to leave Cassie. He'd lost Lisa and Ben. Rufus and Ash; Pamela and Viktor. 

It was no wonder Death took favour with him: Death was the one that took everything from him. 

Castiel had never understood Dean's guilt; hadn't realized that the hunter didn't know that his father hadn't been even an eighth of the man that he was. Cas thought it obvious that Dean was just…more than what John had ever aspired to be. Dean was truly a family man: John was in it for vengeance. 

John had seen it; John had known. For that, Cas was grateful. But it wasn't enough that John had known even before he'd died. 

If John had just told Dean what he meant to the world, Cas might not have felt the need to punch a hole through the afterlife and thrust Mary, Ellen, Jo, Bobby, and himself through the breach. 

What Cas hadn't counted on was that no one, not even he, could remember a damn thing. It was the price for breaking that particular boundary. 

If Dean had considered him a child before, he was forced to redefine it now. Castiel didn't even have the instincts the others did: didn't know what hunger or discomfort meant; couldn't tell the dangerous from the safe; didn't know how to tie his shoes or what the taps on the shower did. He couldn't read body language; didn't understand it when Dean just quietly, patiently explained it to him for the millionth time, and then explained a million more if Cas still didn't get it. 

Castiel, the Castiel that knew Dean and all he'd done--and all that he would have done--for the angel, knew then that it went beyond Dean being a good person. He wasn't just kind and giving. He was a miracle. He was the creation of God's that Castiel could love the most. That it was right for Castiel to feel pride of, even though he had no right to be proud. It was the nights when Castiel, the Castiel that didn't know Dean or himself or anything else for that matter, woke sweating and close to screaming, panting and desperate in his bed that drew a little more of the other Cas around the edges of this infant of the angel. The nightmares of ancient battles, and the new ones; the memory of how it had felt to see Dean on the other side of the holy fire in that demon's shack. How it had felt to have the Leviathan crush him just enough to take control--but not so much that he wouldn't feel the blows dealt to his hunter; wouldn't know the pain of hurting someone who would take every hit if it meant that his family got to live. How he was a part of that short, precious list of family that belonged to Dean. 

Those nights brought Dean. 

Not at first, of course; Dean was weary and he was tired, and he didn't want to encroach on Cas's space almost as much as he didn't want to trust the idea that the man was actually Cas, that his family had come back to him. But Mary had been having the nightmares , too. They all had. 

Dean had gone to his mother, had sat with her, held her when she woke crying about the flames. He and Sam had loved her into remembering: he and Sam had given her a tether, from the life she'd lived before to the one she'd been pushed through a hole in reality for. 

When Sherriff Mills had found out about Bobby's reappearance, she'd smacked both boys over the back of the head and gone directly to Bobby's side--do not pass Go, do not collect 200 dollars. 

Between the boys, Jody, and Mary, Bobby began to remember who he was. It was mostly the boys: Dean and he working on cars, Sam sitting to the side watching with Jody and refreshing the beer supply. 

The first thing Bobby remembered was his vocabulary. The cry of "Balls!" made Jody turn to Sam for just a moment, fighting tears and smiles for all she was worth. "Idgits" got Dean, Sam, and Jody beaming with joy. 

Ellen and Jo were drawn together, and they stayed together. They woke one morning remembering, and wouldn't tell a single soul what had gotten them to remember. Dean had a suspicion that it was that Jo had gone to Ellen that night: small, scared and helpless against the nightmare of attacking beasts; that Jo had climbed beside her mother like she had when she was little, and it had stirred up that it wasn't just that they were friends to each other: that this world was theirs, after all. 

But Cas remained oblivious. Dean had been on his way to Bobby's living room when he'd heard Cas stirring, restless and plagued with nightmares. Knocking softly, Dean pushed the door slowly open, slipping through. 

Cas was in trouble, Dean knew that much. He knew the look of a nightmare. 

Cas jerked under Dean's hand, waking up at the gentle touch and petrified. Cas bolted upright, and Dean sat back on the edge of the bed, reflexively catching Cas before he could knock himself from the bed. 

The ex-angel didn't know, Dean kept telling himself. He didn't know that putting his arms around Dean, laying his head on Dean's shoulder, wasn't exactly the thing guys did with each other as friends. 

The memories of all that Castiel, angel of the Lord, had done for him rushed through Dean's head, and he held Cas back a little tighter than he would've if it was anyone else doing this: Sammy and Mary included. 

Dean soothed the shuddering body in his arms: quiet comfort. "The screams...everything was...everything was bleeding and screaming. And it was so dark, but there were so many flashes of light I couldn't think...it hurt." Cas's hand slid, resting against Dean's shoulder. Against the scar of his handprint on Dean's shoulder. "But there...there was a light that wasn't flashing. One…I-I snatched it up. I took it out of that place...and it was bleeding, too, but it wasn't screaming. It wasn't even crying. I cried for it. It felt like I shouldn't have, but I did. And the light got brighter, it touched me. Wiped away my tears. Put them in my heart. I was so surprised because I didn't think I had a heart. And then...and then I hid the light." Dean's breath was slow and calm--and weak as a wet piece of tissue paper. He held Cas tighter, remembering with him for the first time. 

"You took a soul out of Hell and put him back in his body."

"You're the one…you feel like the light felt. You feel safe." Cas's hand curled in Dean's shirt as if he knew that that sentence would scare the hunter six ways to Tuesday. 

After that, Dean would come to Cas's room if his mother didn't need him. Dean did research on every dream Cas told him about: figured out which battle it was he was remembering, filling in as many blanks as he could. 

"Why can't you tell me what my favourite colour was?! Why don't you know what kind of food I like?! I--" 

"Cas! Even if you knew what your favourite colour was or what kind of food you like, you never would have told me. I don't think you would have told anyone. You didn't...You didn't do these things. You weren't that kind of person. You didn't choose things…" 

Cas's eyes darkened slightly, and he sat down heavily. "Fine."

"Cas, that is not to say that I wouldn't have wanted to know the answers to these questions...I wanted to know about you…" 

"Deep evergreen." Cas told him quickly. "My favourite colour...deep evergreen. And I like cheese burgers and steak...I like garlic and fries, too--I hate brussel sprouts and broccoli: and casserole is disgusting." 

Dean's lips twitched at that, "I'll make sure you and I aren't around if Mom makes it again…" 

"I just...I wanted to know if I liked those things before--" Cas cut himself off, looking at Dean. "Before you were the guiding light in my life." was left unsaid, but understood, between them. 

"Well, you did like burgers, but there's no guaranteeing that that was your choice; Jimmy's choice, or my influence." 

"...And Jimmy was my vessel…" 

"Yes. He agreed to let you...take the steering wheel." 

"Do I look like him?" 

_"No. Your eyes are somehow--I would've said it was fucking impossible, but--they're somehow bluer. Your skin is just a little paler, and your hair looks more black than Jimmy's did. Jimmy always smelt like fire and woods and clean, fresh air--with just a hint of aftershave. You smell like fire and woods and clean, fresh air...with just a hint of apple pie and clean sheets thrown in just to make it even fucking harder to keep myself from feeling like being next to you is the closest thing I'll ever get to being home. Your lips are redder, more chapped; and you...you have this look like you're in a constant state of awe...and it's beautiful. You're beautiful."_ "Yeah, you look exactly like him." Dean let the truth go back to the part of his brain that was reserved for thoughts that centered around Cas and how much he'd love to see if he could taste the fire: thoughts he'd never had before he'd fished Cas's coat out of the murky water, when he'd known that that was it. 

It took time before Dean could let the angel stand on his own a little more. 

Cas had finally mastered the shower taps before Dean and Sam took a case together, because Dean hadn't gone with Sam on any of the ten cases he'd taken since they'd all come back from the dead. Ellen and Jo, Jody and Bobby, and Sam and Mary were the new teams...until it became clear that Mary and Sam didn't work as a team of hunters as well as they did mother and son. Mary joined Ellen and Jo, and it still took Sam two solo cases before Mary could convince her eldest to go with his brother. 

They'd just finished the case when Dean got the call from Mary. Cas's voice could be heard in the background, yelling and screaming. Mary tumbled and rushed over telling Dean that Cas was sick and they couldn't wake him from whatever fever dream he was in. 

Dean made a day's drive in six hours, leaving Sam and their things in the podunk little town, Sam waving him off like a madman. 

Cas was bucking and writhing, whimpering. "The screams…" Dean's heart dropped at the whine, his mind flashing to Hell. 

Dean pushed into the room, past Mary and Jody. He scooped up the body on the bed, and let Cas drape over his front, unconscious but calmer than he had been before. 

"Cas, I'm here," Dean told him in hushed tones, "I'm right here." 

Dean brought the fever down and calmed him, and he was there, slumped in the chair that he usually slumped in, when Cas finally peeled those impossible eyes open...but this time, Dean was holding Castiel's hand over the bedspread, exhaustion written over every feature and a bruise adorning his right temple. Cas could have wept. 

From then on, Cas was in training to join the family business. 

Dean wasn't quite pleased with it, but he wasn't about to protest: Cas needed to know this shit in order to stay in Dean's life--and Dean needed him in his life. 

Cas's first hunt should never have been: Dean and Sam were being attacked at the newly-rebuilt Bobby's, and Cas was, of course, there. 

In the aftermath, with the bastard ganked and the house being patched up hurriedly while wounds were being cared for, Cas was drawn to Dean's side as though magnetized, slapping Dean's fumbling hands away from his wound and picking up the bandages and cleaning utensils. Cas slowly and carefully cared for Dean, cleaning the gash and dressing it. Dean caught a glimpse of a cut on Cas's thigh, and his hand was moving before his brain could tell it to do jack shit. "It's okay...It's not anything big…" Cas let Dean extend his leg to get a better look at the damage, hissing slightly as the forming scab pulled just a little. 

"How'd it happen?" 

"My leg hit some of the glass…" Cas told him in a tighter voice than he should have had. Dean looked up quickly and saw the pain in Cas's face. 

"It's more than this, isn't it?" 

Cas's gaze wavered, looking to the others scattered about, all caring for the house or each other. There was no use for it: Dean would just tell him that Jo--unconscious and broken-armed--was being cared for by Ellen; Bobby had reset Jody's foot back into place; Sam had Mary to help him with the splintered remains of the window… "I-I think I have a piece of glass in the back of my leg. I was going to pull it out when we got a moment--" 

"Turn over." Dean ordered, voice soft and husky. Worry shone in the deep evergreen eyes, and Cas's gut twisted with the thought that he'd put it there. 

Cas did as he was told, turning over and letting Dean look over the back of his legs. 

"You're right, there is some glass here. Do you think you can walk? It'd be best if you...took your pants off...so I can get at the wounds." 

Cas turned his head, looking into Dean's eyes. He nodded infinitesimally, accepting Dean's help. Cas laid over his bed horizontally, Dean handing him a pillow to grip. Dean hissed with every twitch of pain pulling the glass out caused, watching Cas's back tense and flex with muscle as Cas just held it in. Dean felt a flash of pride at the way the angel was taking his wounds: small, yes, but Dean knew they had to hurt like a son of a bitch. Mary came to stand in the doorway for a moment, taking Dean's glance as an order and going to get a clean towel and more hot water. The hot water had Cas hissing into the bedspread, his back tense like a drawn bowstring. 

"It's okay...It's okay, Cas." Dean breathed hurriedly, smoothing his hand over Cas's lower back in a soothing way. "Almost done, I promise." 

When Dean was done, Cas asked him to help him up, his leg too tender to turn over onto. 

Cas joined them as they cleaned up the house and patched up the damage, not a hint of pain in his face even as Sammy brushed his injury. Dean wanted to hug him and tell him how proud he was. 

Dean brought Cas a bottle of whiskey that night, and a pair of shot glasses. 

Cas sat in the kitchen, painstakingly rebuilding Mary's favourite coffee mug, just for something to do. Part of him was exhausted, Dean could tell; but part of Cas wouldn't let him sleep tonight, and Dean knew that, too. "Hey." 

Cas jerked in surprise, turning his head to the sound of Dean's voice, though his eyes were past focussing on anything besides the small pieces of broken mug. 

"Everyone else is in bed, Cas. You should be, too." Dean told him softly, pouring them a shot each smoothly as he studied what Cas was doing. "You don't have to worry about that--" 

"That's what Mary said, too." Cas told him gruffly, and Dean took that for what it really was: an order for silence. "I can't sleep yet." 

Dean nodded silently, sitting back and watching. 

Cas emerged slightly a few minutes later, reaching for the drink he'd been poured. "Thank you, Dean." 

"Any time, Cas." For three hours, Cas and Dean sat in silence, Dean simply watching Cas work on putting the splintered and broken mug slowly back together. 

"I saw you take that hit, Dean. You should be resting." 

Dean's eyes flashed, looking from the mug to Cas's face, still bent over his work and completely attentive solely to the glass, "I've taken worse. Besides, there's no rest for the wicked...or the self-employed." 

Lulled back into silence, Cas continued to work and Dean continued to watch. "What did I do?" Cas whispered, so quietly that the only reason he was audible was because Dean had had no aural input for so long. "What did I do to make you so...so good to me?" Cas's eyes were wet as he tore them up from the glass to Dean's face, "You're a good man and I know that...but...I don't understand how you can be so good to me. How you can stand to be near me after what I did to you--" 

"Cas, you stop that right now." Dean's voice was deep and coarse with disuse and just a little anger, "You pulled me out of Hell, Cas. You saved my life, and Bobby's, and Sam's more times than I can tell you. You helped me save the world from Michael and Lucifer…Cas, everything you did. Everything that happened…It's forgiven. You died trying to save the world, trying to make amends...You did right by me, no matter what." Dean reached over and put a hand on Cas's wrist, looking him dead in the eye. 

Cas let Dean pull him up and walk him to bed. 

Dean slumped in his chair before Cas pulled him back out of it, "Hm?" 

"You're tired. And hurt. You should sleep in a bed." 

"All the beds in the inn are taken, Cas. I'll be okay." Dean smiled for the first time in a long time, but Cas shook his head. 

"No, Dean. With me. There's enough room here." 

That was the first time Dean slept beside Cas. Every night after, he slept beside Cas, the Grand Canyon of bed between them, but beside Cas nonetheless. 

Cas started travelling with Sam and Dean, a mostly-silent presence in the back seat and another reason for Sam to get a separate hotel room. Dean didn't know how it had happened that Sam had been the one to break off and get another room, but part of him was grateful for it. 

The separate beds felt weird, though, after a while: Dean had never slept close to Cas, but it was still weird to feel the separation of two beds where the join of one normally was. 

Cas felt it, too, crawling into bed with Dean in the middle of the night and curling up against his side. 

Dean didn't care: even the next morning when he woke with Cas using him as a pillow, he couldn't bring himself to regret a damn thing. Especially when the realization hit that Cas hadn't whimpered in his sleep; hadn't stirred or moaned once from the nightmares Dean had thought he couldn't chase away. Cas had stuttered over telling him that he was sorry for the intrusion: Dean simply pulled him closer for a little longer. 

It wasn't the first sign Dean had given, and by no means the last, but it brought up questions in the angel that he was socially adept enough (now) not to ask Dean, so Bobby became his new best friend. 

When the older hunter was asked if the angel and Dean had ever had "relations", Bobby claimed nightmares for three days after until Jody smacked him over the back of the head and ordered him to answer the damn question and stop making the poor boy feel awkward. 

"'S far as we know, no. But you two've been makin' eyes at each other since you yanked him outta Hell like a carrot outta the garden." Bobby looked up at Jody sitting against his desk, and grumbled a little, "And, to answer your next question: no, we wouldn't care. Lord knows that boy has lost enough to this damn job. He doesn't need to lose any more because of us." Jody squeezed Bobby's hand mustering a tiny smile. 

"I'm glad you guys came back when you did. I don't think Dean would have pulled himself through much longer." 

"What do you mean?" Cas asked quickly, and Bobby looked between his girlfriend and the angel, asking the same question. 

"The only thing Dean was living for was getting revenge on Dick Roman. With a mentality like that, I don't think he would have kept his heart beating much past that. He'd been losing steadily more and more of his family: it was just a matter of time." 

Cas excused himself, stumbling through the house and out into the open air, scouring the junkyard for Dean only to find him under the hood of his precious Impala. 

Cas strode for him, ignoring everything else as he pushed Dean further into the garage and hugged him. "Don't die." 

Completely perplexed was a mild understatement, but Dean dropped his tools quickly, reaching up to hug him back. "What's wrong, Cas?"

"Don't die." 

"Shh, it's okay, I'm okay. I'm not going anywhere, Cas. Tell me, what's this about?" 

"I'm here and Bobby's here and Mary and Ellen and Jo...please, Dean…" 

"Cas, there's a very good chance that I'm not going to die any time soon. Just...calm down." 

"I don't know what's wrong with me." Cas finally pulled away, and Dean saw the tears in his eyes. 

Dean caught the tears away, looking more concerned than he had in a long time, "Cas, you don't have to worry about me leaving, you know that, right?" Cas's eyes strayed somewhere far away, "Listen to me, Castiel: I have died more times than anyone ever has before, and I've lost more than anyone could stand to lose. I'm not going to leave it all now that it's come back to me. I was in trouble before...I know that. But I...I'm better now. I'm better now: I have you back, I have my family back." Dean pulled Cas back into another hug, holding him tight for a minute and soothing him. 

"I'm sorry you didn't get John back." Cas murmured dully against his shoulder. 

Dean snorted once, "I don't think he'd know how to be back anymore than I'd know how to deal with him again. And Mom...honestly, Cas, I think she's happier without him. She was happy when they were married, but I think that she's happy more of the time with less of the shine...if that makes sense." 

Cas nodded, wiping his tears away and pulling himself together. "It seems like that's always the story with love…" 

"No." Dean shook his head, making sure Cas took a seat before turning back to his baby, "No, 'cause sometimes, love happens more powerfully than any two people can deal with, so they never do." 

"What would happen if they did?" 

Dean smirked just a little, "Probably? It'd end the world." 

Cas sat, watching Dean work, until it was too dark for Dean to work anymore. They walked into the house in silence, both hit suddenly with hunger as the smell of Mary's cooking hit them. 

"Hey, boys." Mary kissed Dean and Cas's cheeks, opening her arms for a hug from each. 

That night, stuffed pleasantly and sleepy for no good reason other than that they never got enough sleep with their lifestyle, Cas and Dean climbed into bed together for the first time since this arrangement began. 

"Cas?" 

"Mm?" Dean slid closer, putting his arms around Cas's thin frame, and Cas was all too happy to oblige, laying his head against Dean's chest. 

"I want to end the world with you." 

Cas looked up, but he couldn't make out more than the outline of Dean's chiseled face in the light of the alarm clock. He reached up as Dean slid down, and they kissed like lovers torn apart. 

It was no more than that. One kiss. One aching, earth-shattering kiss that redefined the meaning of everything good in the world, but just one kiss. 

It was enough to bring Castiel back to him, though. In one great rush, the history of the world hit Cas: everything he was before mixing with who he'd become on those long, star-gazing nights on Bobby's front steps with Dean; who he'd become with the injuries and the nightmares; who he'd become with Dean silently loving him. 

When Cas came back it was enough to send a jolt of power through Dean: enough to make him know that Cas was back, the profound bond realized and connected and stronger than it had been just from Cas pulling him from Hell. 

"C-Cas?" 

"Yes, Dean?" 

Dean was about to ask, it was on his lips, when Cas reached up and kissed it from his mouth, and Dean realized he could taste the fire. "You're back, aren't you?" 

Cas laid against his hunter's chest, holding on lightly to show that he wasn't going anywhere. "I was by your side the whole time."


End file.
